Efforts to change the law are just another attempt to fire up the Republican base for the mid-term elections, similar to Trump’s rhetoric against the migrant “caravan.”

It’s all aimed at instilling just enough fear to energize Republican supporters and get them to the polls.

But the White House can’t just announce that gender (defined differently in different cultures) is now sex (genitals that appear to be male or female), irrespective of self-identity. What’s next? Will Trump soon declare that apples are now oranges?

This is wrong in so many ways. First, there is the basic physiological reality that one in 1,500 babies are born intersex. Intersex babies may be born with external genitals from both sexes, others have external genitals of one sex and the internal anatomy of the other sex (e.g. ovaries in a baby that otherwise looks like a boy).

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Second, proponents of amending Title IX are missing the point of gender — that it’s socially constructed and fluid. Gender identity can be, and often is, independent of sex (male/female). So a person with the genitalia of a male may identify as a woman.

Gender cannot be rigidly defined by external signs and symbols. It is deeply integrated in the culture we are raised in, the historical period we are living in and our personalities.

“Gender identity is your own sense or conviction of maleness or femaleness; and gender role is the cultural stereotype of what is masculine and feminine.”

People now define gender is many ways: “Feminine,” “masculine” and “androgynous,” “bi-gender,” (expressing two distinct gender identities), “gender fluid” (adjusting gendered behaviour to suit the situation) and “agender” — or “undifferentiated”(genderless), among others.

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The Trump administration is hardly the only entity to try to use sex and gender as synonyms. Many health researchers have equated them in their studies — claiming to be measuring gender when they are actually referring to sex. By forcing people into limited categories of sex as male or female, there’s an assumption that these are homogeneous groups, that males will all be similar to one another and females will be alike.

Ironically, the most effective way to change these deeply held attitudes is for people to have positive experiences with “the Other”, suggesting that the best way to evolve towards positive change is to get to know those who are different from us.

This fear-based rallying cry by Trump Republicans — focused on keeping out migrants, refugees and immigrants and ensuring that transgender people are forced into strict sex-based categories - seems intended to drive Republican voters to the polls. We’ll know soon if it was successful.